We now know for sure that sometime in the near future Google will be coming out with a consumer-wearable heads-up augmented reality display. And simple logic tells us that its major rivals are hard at work on similar competing platforms.
Which means that soon there will be no reason at all for whatever cyber-information you are looking at to require a display screen. Any convenient wall, table, pants leg, your friend’s shirt, or the spaces in between can show the info you need. In the scheme of things, we are rather close now to an eccescopic world.
Which means that the iPad and its many imitators may soon be as out of date as an old 8-track tape player. For all of the current excitement around these tablet devices, they may shortly come to be seen as one of those transitional technologies that seems, in retrospect, oddly quaint.
It will be interesting to see if this plays out the way that you predict. Will all of those people who went through Lasik surgery be willing to start wearing some form of eye gear again? I guess people are still happy to wear sunglasses, so maybe if the AR glasses are cool enough looking they will.
I look forward to the time when leg-of-the-pants replaces back-of-the-napkin.